Sunday, December 14, 2014

Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that soon (but not soon enough) to be retired State Senator Mike Ellis is spending taxpayer money to hire a Republican state operative for a couple of months:

In November, outgoing Senate President Mike Ellis (R-Neenah) hired the campaign manager of Senator-elect Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), an ally of Ellis. Kyle Koenen will be paid more than $3,400 a month as a legislative assistant while waiting for a permanent job in Wanggaard's office to start in January.

As of the last reporting date on Oct. 20, Wanggaard's campaign had thousands of dollars in cash that could have been used to pay Koenen to do political work instead of state work so he wouldn't have been out of a job for the two months following Wanggaard's election victory.

But Ellis, who retires in January, said that he has been frugal overall with the money in his office's budget for personnel and that there has been enough official work for Koenen to do since one of his full-time staffers left his office this month to work for another senator. Including Koenen, Ellis has three staff members, one in Neenah and the other two in Madison.

"I still have constituents to take care of and phone calls to answer," Ellis said. "I can't take care of the district with two people."

Stein goes on to use the usual corporate media shtick of false equivalency, claiming both sides do it, as if that somehow makes it OK.

I think Stein missed a very curious point about Ellis' stunt.

As the gentle reader will recall, the Teapublicans put out a hit on Ellis earlier this year, having him secretly videotaped at a bar, in which Ellis boasted about creating a Super PAC to go after his Democratic appointment and stating that Scott Walker works only for himself. They wanted Ellis out because he did not always toe the party line and they had a lot of money making ventures - like school privatization - to cash in on.

So, when his party stabbed him in the back like that, why in the world would Ellis turn around and help them out?

Did they break Ellis' ego like he breaks gavels? Is Ellis that much of a sheep? Do they have compromising photos of Ellis with a sheep?

All I know is that if I had been betrayed like Ellis was, I would be loathe to do them any favors.